Warm Spiced Holiday Wines

 Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran and yes it is the season for many beverages we seem to reserve for the holidays such as hot spiced wine. Today we talk about a few recipes for hot spiced wines.

I used to wonder why people felt the need to heat up a perfectly nice wine and add spices to it for a holiday drink. It doesn’t matter to me anymore, I stopped fighting it and now I just go along with the tradition. I find myself especially interested in how to season the wine you choose to subject to this ritual. White wines such as dry Riesling or Gewurztraminer are nice when seasoned with honey, orange liqueur and fresh ginger. It makes for a very warming and pleasant beverage with sugar cookies as a casual dessert. Red wines is a bit tricky to me as I experimented long and hard to figure out how to make a Sangria that I would actually drink. Then I began to pursue heating red wines. I like to start with a wine that is already low in tannin such as Merlot. I have also made this recipe with Syrah which contradicts the low tannin thing but it is good. I add orange juice, orange liqueur, sugar, and cinnamon sticks to this recipe and it is actually not too bad. One very important aspect though is never let the wine come to a boil. That is bad – very bad. You can get these recipes by visiting our website at aginfo.net  And thank you for joining me on today’s Vine to Wine.